Avengers Assemble has been looking pretty promising for a while now, despite the clunky name change in the UK. Joss Whedon's involvement as both writer and director adds a certain offbeat credibility to the whole project, and all the footage we've seen so far has been cracking.

Marvel has poured a torrent of clips and featurettes on to the interweb in the last couple of weeks, more of which later, but in the meantime the first verdicts are in on the finished movie in the wake of the LA premiere, and they bode very well indeed.

These are tweets, rather than full-on reviews, but they hint that Whedon has managed to do what no director before him has achieved: make The Hulk work on the big screen. Neither Ang Lee with 2003's Hulk or Louis Leterrier with 2008's The Incredible Hulk really managed to capture the raging majesty nor tristesse of the character, so for Whedon to get under the jade giant's emerald skin in an ensemble movie seems an impressive feat. Then again, maybe the Hulk works better in a celluloid environment where he can bounce off other superheroes. Or maybe it's all the motion capture magic that has been employed this time around.

"Absolutely loved THE AVENGERS," tweeted Collider's Steven Weintraub. "Was smiling from beginning to end. If you're a Marvel fan you're going to lose your shit in the theatre." He added: "Also, the two things that made #THEAVENGERS amazing: the Hulk and the humour. Joss Whedon gets a 10 out of 10 on both of those."

Lost creator Damon Lindelof tweeted: "The Hulk we have been waiting for has at last arrived," while XXL Mag's Shaheem Reid described the film as "major", adding: "LOT of action, laughs and surprises. Hulk stole the show."

Even the more mainstream Variety got in on the positivity. "Not a false note. Innovative. BRUTAL. And goddamn funny," said film editor Josh Dickey. "Hype = believe it." Fanboy mecca AintitCool News said the movie was the first Marvel film with a rousing finish. "That third act is more than enough to make THE AVENGERS the best Marvel movie yet," tweeted the site's Jeremy Smith.

What exactly is it about Mark Ruffalo's Hulk/Bruce Banner than marks his performance out from those of Eric Bana and Ed Norton, both of whose parts felt underdrawn and rather lacking in enthusiasm?

Whedon has already hinted that the fact that Ruffalo's own features have been used to construct those of the CGI Hulk's has made all the difference, and the actor himself seems to concur in this video interview from the premiere. "There was a lot of talk about Marvel wanting the Hulk to look like the actor and Joss and I felt very strongly that it should," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "I walked in and saw a model sculpture of The Hulk and it looked exactly like me and I got a huge, huge smile on my face. The motion capture leotard that you have to wear isn't the most flattering, but I was really excited to use that technology to bring The Hulk to life in a way that we haven't seen it. I wanted to humanise The Hulk and make it a performance. It was difficult and strange and new but also very satisfying."

For a glimpse of Ruffalo in action as The Hulk have a look at these two TV spots at Aint It Cool. There's a granitey chunkiness to the actor's face that seems to have fed nicely into the character design. How will Whedon and his team get round the fact that The Hulk was a relentless, uncontrollable force of nature in the two previous films, but now seems capable of cooperation and matey flashes of recognition? We'll have to wait until 26 April (4 May in the US) to find out, when the film hits the big screen in the UK.

Moving away from The Hulk, here's a new extended clip in which Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man squares off with Tom Hiddleston's Loki. Tony Stark reminds his Norse deity opponent that he's up against the entire Avengers team, to which Loki replies that he has an army. Its identity remains a secret, as it has all the way through the publicity process for the film, but I'm betting the villain manages to turn mankind against itself in some maniacally devious manner.

Finally, here's our first extended look at Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, once again proving that you don't need superpowers to thrive in a Marvel comic book flick.

Just when we were feeling so positive, somebody comes along to spoil the fun with a ridiculous "racelifting" campaign. In this case it's the online cretins who have been getting upset over the decision to cast Samuel L Jackson as the superhero ensemble's head honcho Nick Fury in the film. Jackson is (duh duh duuuuuuuh!) a black man, a fact which seems to have stuck in the craw of certain people, the character having been white in his original comic book incarnation. You might remember the disgruntled howling of the US-based Council of Conservative Citizens two years ago when it emerged that Idris Elba was set to play Norse god Heimdall in Marvel's previous film Thor. The CCC are rather quiet on film matters these days, but other lovely people have taken the disturbingly wrongheaded baton from them.

"Nick Fury is white not black," states one Facebook group, while Twitter has also been a centre of discussion on the subject. The character has been black in the Ultimate Marvel comic book universe for more than a decade, while Jackson has already portrayed him in four films stretching back to 2008's Iron Man, so quite why anyone is getting hot under the collar about the subject now, even if it were anything worth getting upset about, is beyond me. This looks like blatant racism disguised as fanboy nitpicking. Now if they made the Hulk purple, that would be something quite different...